JEDDAH: The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) has endorsed the decision of the General Committee for Municipal Elections to ban the use of text messages on mobiles and the WhatsApp application for the campaign of candidates.

Speaking to a local publication, Saleh bin Mohammad Al-Khathlan, NSHR's spokesman and deputy chairman, said the society sees the decision useful for protecting the privacy of individuals.

“Nonetheless the decision must be supported by a regulation as there is no provision in the system for banning the use of mobiles in election campaigns, which may raise some controversy between the committee and some candidates,” said Al-Khathlan.

He said limiting election propaganda and advertisements of the candidates’ campaigns by a specified number of publicity institutions might lead to some preferences by these institutions choosing the candidates with good financial backing.

“This may increase the cost of campaigns so only wealthy candidates can afford to organize campaigns,” he said.

Judea bin Nahar Al-Qahtani, spokesman of the General Committee for Municipal Elections, referred to some candidates’ reactions circulating in the media. He termed as untrue reports that the committee restricted the number of ad companies to three for running ad and billboard campaigns for the candidates.

“It is likely that one of the ad companies got the biggest proportion of ads and this is not our business,” he explained.

He said billboards and ads can be authorized by awarding special permits by the local election committee of the region so the candidate may use certain sites and locations, dismissing the notion and news in the media that only three ad companies are to operate and manage the ads and publicity for the candidates.